What Have Passwords Do with HIPAA Requirements

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was issued to assist in the portability of health insurance and to reduce the administrative cost of healthcare. What does this have to do with medical record security?

The enhanced availability of health information in an electronic format improves the quality of and reduce the cost of health care, yet it in parrallel it arises concerns about greater risk for loss of privacy among health care participants. Meantime, one should be sure, that paper records could also be abused and misused by anyone in a white coat, and no one would ever know. At least with electronic records, there can be "audit trails," to show who has viewed at which data.

What have passwords do with protecting patient privacy and securing of health data? They control at the access point that "You are who you are". Physical attributes - signature, facial points, voice print, tping style can be used to identify who you are at the computer. Passwords are the simplest form of authentication. They can be very secure, can even be too secure – if are forgetten. Strict enforcement of "password policies" with detailed audit logs will manage user access and account activity.

Password authentification can control authentication attempts to use privileges that have not been authorized, time out on computers, require re-entry to log in.